ABSTRACT: We have received an article on the Cuban situation from the "Directorio Revolucionario Democratico Cubano" - Orlando Gutierrez, the Secretary, is a member of the Radical Party - which we are publishing here. We are asking our readers to sign the appeal addressed to the Cuban authorities and to send it to the Radical Party, together with the coupon on the last page.

(THE PARTY new - N. 7 - May 1992)

The Cuban economy is disintegrating after 30 years of mis- government and repression, and particularly after the breakup of the Soviet bloc.

Cubans see their standard of living plummetting daily, and the extremely centralist and bureaucratic Cuban government is destroying itself.

A Stalinist system does not permit dissidence or reforms, which results in the people growing increasingly more desperate and frustrated as the economic situation worsens.

Hundreds of Cubans have tried to escape across the sea in makeshift boats in an attempt to reach a land of freedom, while professional workers, military men and high-ranking government officials find it much easier to join the one million Cubans already in exile.

In Cuba itself, a growing opposition movement has embarked on a nonviolent campaign to bring about the necessary reforms. The present situation could plunge the country into a long period of horrific violence which might easily escalate, causing the deaths of thousands of Cubans and necessitating outside military intervention.

The Castro regime has sought to suppress this movement by immediately effecting brutal reprisals. The leaders of the two opposition groups, the Cuban Democratic Union and the Cuban Democratic Coalition, have been brutalized and imprisoned by special squads organized by the Government.

By arresting dozens of the principal leaders, the Cuban dictatorship has temporarily been able to stop the opposition groups from transforming themselves into a civil disobedience movement which would have had a determining effect in getting reforms underway in Cuba.

Civil disobedience of the kind used by Gandhi and Martin Luther King in their struggles is the only instrument that can bring democracy and reforms to the Island. It is a question of giving moral support to the opposition forces.

It is necessary for political parties, people's organizations, and also the press, to undertake joint action in order to obtain the following: 1) the release of all political prisoners; 2) support for civil disobedience groups in Cuba; 3) support for the opposition's call for a direct confrontation with the Cuban government, which would lead to Castro's resignation, to the forming of a temporary government, and free elections to create a new democratic constitution and government.

Resident Cubans, and also those abroad, must lead their country towards democracy, social justice and national independence; they must create a prosperous future rather than return to the past.

The Cuban opposition must be supported transnationally in order to build a free and prosperous Cuba which can take its place in a world that is becoming increasingly more interdependant in its struggle to create a just and democratic world order.

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Support the campaign for human rights in Cuba by signing the appeal on the right.

We, the undersigned, members of democratic parliaments and governments, appeal to the Cuban authorities to free Cuban citizens Luis Alberto Pita Santos and Daniel Azpillaga, imprisoned for having organized nonviolent demonstrations in favour of democratic reforms in Cuba.

We also ask that Mario Chanes de Armas, a political prisoner who was recently released after serving thirty years, be allowed to leave Cuba and join his family in exile.